The Iraq Enigma: Urgency Subsides, But Danger Persists

Lukman Faily, Iraqi ambassador to the United States, told The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. is asking too much of politicians in Iraq “to have them form a government and deal with [security] issues at the pace the U.S. expects.”

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WASHINGTON — With the U.S. still mulling its options in Iraq and trying to spur the formation of a new government there, Iraqi officials are pressing the case that America’s indecision is risking its influence and allies in Baghdad.

U.S. officials have signaled that the U.S. isn’t going to take further action in Iraq until a new government—one not lead by current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki—is in place.

But Lukman Faily, Iraq’s ambassador in Washington, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. needs to help push back the advances of Sunni extremists with airstrikes.

“The United States should have acted yesterday. They are already losing influence. The vacuum is already being filled,” Mr. Faily said. “Back home there is anger, that is an understatement. Definitely disappointment. Even the closest friends of the United States in Iraq feel abandoned.”

Without U.S intervention, Iraqi officials said, the vacuum will be filled by Iran and other neighbors of Iraq.

Mr. Faily said that some officials in the U.S. and in Baghdad seem to view the breakup of Iraq into Kurdish, Arab Sunni and Shiite states as a solution to the crisis. But such a division, Mr. Faily said, would increase strife throughout the Middle East, spilling violence to many of Iraq’s neighbors.

“The danger is it could destabilize the whole region,” he said. “A redrawing of Iraq cannot be contained within the current geographic borders of Iraq.”

With the advance of Sunni militants in Iraq having slowed following the toppling of a succession of Iraqi cities last month, the sense of urgency inside the Pentagon has subsided.

Top Pentagon officials are continuing to review a report drafted by U.S. military advisers sent to Iraq on the needs and problems of Iraq’s armed forces, which were U.S.-trained and equipped but have deteriorated in the two-and-a-half years since the U.S. troop pullout.

The Defense Department does not have “a set timeline” on when it will complete its analysis and recommend a way forward in Iraq, officials said.

“Our focus is on a thorough, detailed and deliberate analysis and recommendation, while we acknowledge that we need to do this as rapidly as possible, our priority remains on a thorough, detailed and very deliberate process,” Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signaled that a unity government needs to be in place in Baghdad before the U.S. would act.

While U.S. officials have said they see an urgency to the security crisis in Iraq, Gen. Dempsey said that the threat presented by the militant group calling itself the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL, was a long-term threat to the U.S., not an immediate one.

“We are preparing a strategy that has a series of options to present to our elected leaders on how we can initially contain, eventually disrupt and finally defeat ISIL over time,” Gen. Dempsey said in remarks during the recent Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.

The U.S. will be willing to help Iraq with advisory teams to help the Iraqi military regaining territory, he said, but only if “we get a credible partner” in an Iraqi government that is more inclusive.

But Mr. Faily said it would not be U.S. pressure, but the security crisis in Iraq that would drive a formation of the government.

“The United States is asking too much of the politicians in Iraq to have them form a government and deal with these issues at the pace the U.S. expects,” he said.

Although Mr. Faily made no predictions on who would lead the government, he said U.S. officials were naïve to think that the next Iraqi government would not be similar to the current government given the election results.

“Would the government be so different that it will change the United States view of things? Certainly not,” Mr. Faily said.

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